Mystery Military Service RWF

I am helping a friend of mine to research her late husbands history. He was in care as a child and told her virtually nothing about his early life and even less about his time in the army.
We have recently acquired his care records which give a few hints about his time in the military but we would appreciate some help understanding them and trying to piece together the sort of service he may have had.
Before we knew his service number we applied last year to the Army records office but they could not help with records
What we know.....
His DOB was 24/9/23
His service number was 4208128
His care homerecords show an entry for 18/3/41 “Passed for Army Grade 1” (aged 17 !!)
His wife knows he was invalided out after a boxing accident left him permanently deaf (no Date)

The care records have 3 different military addresses for him (no dates) in this order
1) 70th Batt (or Btn), Derby Miners Camp, Skegness, Lincoln, Woodhall Spa, Lincs
2) C Coy 70th Batt (or Btn), RWF, ?unthorpe Court, Lincoln.
3) No 7 D.O.S, R ??, Shandon Hydro, Nr Halensburgh, Dumbartonshire, Scotland.
(what does D.O.S stand for ??)

We have looked and discovered that RWF refers to Royal Welsh Fusiliers, otherwise any further help as to the above postings would be fantastic.

Thanks in advance

 

Hi,

You should apply for his service records; https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-service-records, his widow should be able to get them for free. All details for application are available on the link provided.

Mark

 

Have a look here.
Reginald Sheriff 4206831 so pretty close to your number.

Post #15 open first thumbnail and you will see that he was also at Skegness.

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/12501-royal-welch-fusiliers-burma-reginald-sherriff/

Post #18
Royal Welch Fusiliers 4178001 – 4256000


1)70th Batt (or Btn), Derby Miners Camp, Skegness, Lincoln, Woodhall Spa, Lincs.
It will be Btn Battalion.
This was a holiday camp for Derbyshire miners, somewhere nr Butlins holiday campat Skegness. used briefly for troops.

2)C Coy 70th Batt (or Btn), RWF, ?unthorpe Court, Lincoln.

This may be Gunthorpe. Which is here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4628957,-0.7910663,837m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-GB

3)No 7 D.O.S, R ??, Shandon Hydro, Nr Helensburgh, Dumbartonshire, Scotland.
D.O.S. R ?? could be a badly written D.O.C. (RE) Docks operating company royal Engineers.

Shandon Hydro was an upmarket spa hotel.
The house was originally built as a private house for Robert Napier, 1791 – 1876 the shipbuilder. On his death in 1876, it was purchased by a largely Glasgow-based syndicate who added a swimming pool and the Turkish baths before opening it as a hydro.
The outbreak of WW2 signaled the end for Shandon Hydro as it was commandeered bythe government and demolished. It is now the Faslane Naval Base.

Apply for his records again then once you have them they will have the dates he was there so will be easier to work out what he was doing.

 

Shandon Hydro was for a time a Hydropathic Centre for the treatment of TB and although the Navy Hospital took over in 1919 and developed from there I seem to recall that DosR may be a term used in the treatment/ Study of TB ? I wonder if he had TB at any time? During WW2 it was used by the Army . In 1951 it became a hotel again, but it was not until 1957 that it was closed and demolished?

The only other DOSR I am aware of is Defence Ordnance Safety Regulator (DOSR) (Munitions and Explosives) :I


Kyle

 

Thanks Mark yes we will try again now that we have his service number

 

Thanks RCG and yes his number is very close and thanks for pointing out the Skegness posting and for your other explanations.

I will have another look and check that I read the DOS part of the address correctly.

OWEN your point about the 70th being for young soldiers make sense conciidering his age. At what age would he have able to part in actual overseas combat was there a ruling during WW2 ? Although I guess if he lied about his age it would have all been academic anyway.
Thanks for the war diary references, I will check these out.

 

KYLE and RCG I have had another look at the part of the document that quotes the D.O.S
The R is clearly part of something else and the S has a line through it but I think is an S.
I will include an image

 

Having now seen the image I would say that it is

No 7 D.O.S. R E.
No 7 Director of Ordnance Services Royal Engineers.

Common British military abbreviations of 1914-1918
www.1914-1918.net/abbrev.htm
DORE : District Office Royal Engineers DOS : Director of Ordnance Services DP : Drill Purpose DPS : Director of Personal Services DPW : Director of Prisoners.

And would seem to be still used in ww2.
In January 1944, the DOS decided that of the four Adv. Ord. Depots within 21 Army Group 17 AOD would be the first to be phased in for operations and that it should operate mainly with regard to beach maintenance.
(AOD) Army Ordnance Department.

As for the ???Thorpe. I have tried every combination of letters to get a place which matches to any army bases camps etc, but nothing seems to fit.

 

Thanks RCG for your time and information,
Hopefully when we finally manage to get the army records this will all link up with what's on it.

I ve also played around with the ???thorpe name, weird and had the same results, or not as you.

 

There is no mention of 70 Bn in PK Kemp & Graves 'Red Dragon' the 1950s RWF history.

War Diary jobbo methinks, but you could shoot Wrexham an enquiry to see what they have.

 

Perhaps we have been looking and not seeing.
We write something on paper then find out, what we have written is wrong, we cross it out.
So we have been looking for ???Thorpe Court which is non existing anyway.
the other information under it has vertical lines through it so possible means something else to the person who wrote all this down.